1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an expansion card retainer, and more particularly to an adjustable auxiliary expansion card retainer.
2. Description of Related Art
For enforcing the stability of an expansion card in a housing and preventing it from tripping during transportation, an auxiliary expansion card retainer will be mounted in the housing additionally to stabilize the expansion card to allow it not to trip from an expansion card slot besides a general expansion card retainer.
There are a variety of patents concerning auxiliary expansion card, for example, Taiwan Patent Publishing No. 200725224 discloses a supporting components for an outer expansion card; a surface of the supporting frame corresponding to the outer expansion card is provided with a clamping groove for clamping one side of the outer expansion card and one side of the supporting frame is projected with a locking fin fixed on a fixing frame locked on a housing of an electronic device thereby fixing one side of the outer expansion card on the housing of the electronic device. Besides, another side edge of the outer expansion card can be clamped by the clamping groove of the supporting frame.
Furthermore, Taiwan Patent No. 284934 discloses an auxiliary fixing apparatus for an expansion card used for helpingly fixing at least one expansion card in a housing. The expansion card comprises a first end and a second end, in which the first end is provided with a slip and fixed on a rear plate of the housing through a retainer set. The auxiliary fixing apparatus for an expansion card comprises a fixing frame mounted on the housing relatively to the rear plate and a buckling element, in which the fixing frame comprises a base wall on which at least on engagement groove capable of being engaged with the second end of the expansion card and the buckling element is rotationally assembled on the fixing frame. The buckling element is provided with at least one buckling arm and a propping part capable of pressing against the expansion card, in which the buckling arm can be engaged on the fixing frame.
Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 6,970,363 discloses an expansion card support mechanism; it comprises a tool-free chassis, an arm rotatably pivotally coupled to the chassis, in which the arm comprises an expansion card retention end a card retention end springably engageable against a peripheral portion of the expansion card.
As the height of each expansion card (e.g. PCI, ISA expansion card) is not exactly the same depending on the different factories, an auxiliary expansion retainer must have a different design or the change of length according to the difference of height. However, current general auxiliary expansion card retainers are all fixed length and fixed height such that the length thereof cannot be adjusted. Thus, a system might be attached with auxiliary expansion card retainers with different length; this not only increases the cost but also not exactly fit the customer's requirement.